Christie in Chicago: Full-speed ahead

CHICAGO — A traffic scandal is dogging his administration and Democrats are taunting his every move, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had a simple message for an audience in the Windy City on Tuesday: Full-speed ahead.

The potential presidential contender came to Chicago to raise money for the Republican Governors Association, which he leads, and told a friendly group of business leaders that he is confident he can carry out his second-term agenda. He only briefly addressed the scandal that has implicated some of his aides and allies.

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“People who worked for me made some significant mistakes in judgment ... but you only have a few minutes to wallow in that disappointment,” Christie said. “I don’t think that it will curtail for the long haul a second-term agenda because I think the public in New Jersey won’t tolerate it.”

Christie was upbeat and self-deprecating during a question-and-answer session before some 1,600 members and guests of the Economic Club of Chicago, who frequently interrupted him with applause as he touched on themes of pragmatism and bipartisanship that could factor into a 2016 run for the White House.

The total haul for the Chicago trip was $1 million, RGA communications director Gail Gitcho said.

Christie attended private events during the day, including a morning fundraiser with about a dozen donors for Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, Christie strategist Mike DuHaime confirmed. Durkin served as a state chairman for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaigns, according to his biography.

Christie also attended a larger afternoon gathering with billionaire Chicago hedge-fund founder Ken Griffin, a GOP source said. Christie planned to attend a fundraising dinner at Griffin’s home later Tuesday.

Donors found Christie charismatic and forthright, said a veteran Illinois Republican operative briefed on the daytime events. Christie told the donors that he’d been let down by those involved in the traffic scandal, that it was an unfortunate situation and that his team is going work through it, said the operative.

The governor has denied any personal knowledge of or involvement in the scandal, which has been dubbed “Bridgegate.” The controversy escalated earlier this year after documents surfaced tying some of Christie’s top aides and appointees to an apparent plot to orchestrate traffic jams near to the George Washington Bridge as part of an alleged political vendetta against a Democratic mayor.

At the question-and-answer session on Tuesday, Christie returned to themes he favored on the campaign trail last year as he pursued crossover support from Democrats and independents.

“I think the president has to take his share of responsibility for the atmosphere in Washington, D.C.,” Christie said. “Now, so do every one of the leaders in Congress.” Immigration reform is one area, he said, where it’s “enormously frustrating that we now have to undergo a patchwork solution” in the states.

“I think as you look forward to 2016, our party’s priority should be on winning,” Christie added. “Not winning the argument. Winning the election. … Parties tend to become pragmatic when they’re powerless. It’s time for us to get pragmatic.”

The RGA chairman also said he was confident about his party’s chances in the 2014 gubernatorial races, and he name-checked several fellow top-tier Republican governors outside of Washington, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, New Mexico’s Susana Martinez and Nevada’s Brian Sandoval.

And asked which contemporary public figure he most admires, he cited Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a moderate Republican who largely focuses on fiscal issues.

Before the event, Democrats had hit Christie for not planning to appear publicly with any of Illinois’s Republican gubernatorial candidates on this trip. The New Jersey leader also did not appear publicly with GOP Gov. Rick Scott in Florida or candidate Greg Abbott in Texas on recent trips.

But at least one Illinois Republican candidate, Bill Brady, did attend the lunch and said he met privately with Christie as well. Brady trailed frontrunner Bruce Rauner by 20 percentage points in a Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll on the GOP candidates released Tuesday.

“I have no reason to not show up and support my friend Chris Christie,” Brady said.

Rauner requested a private meeting with Christie, a GOP source confirmed. The Democratic Governors Association immediately pounced on reports of the meeting by calling Christie and Rauner “two guys who will do whatever it takes to benefit their own careers.”

The audience at the question-and-answer session wasn’t an entirely Republican one: Seated four seats away from Christie at the luncheon’s head table was Bill Daley, a former chief of staff for President Barack Obama and a well-known Chicago figure who previously chaired the group that hosted Christie.

“I thought he did very well,” Daley told POLITICO about Christie’s performance Tuesday. “Obviously it’s been a difficult six weeks. Look, now it’s out of his hands, control of it, and so it’s in other people’s hands.”

National Democrats followed Christie to Chicago, holding a press conference where former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland questioned Christie’s managerial skills in light of the Bridgegate scandal.

“I’m suggesting two things, two possibilities: Either the governor knew and he is lying, or he is the most inept, incompetent chief executive imaginable,” Strickland said.

But Strickland also encountered questions about why Democrats didn’t do more to help Christie’s opponent in last fall’s governor’s race, state Sen. Barbara Buono. Those questions have re-surfaced after the prominent Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey said it regretted endorsing Christie and Buono unleashed a torrent of criticism toward fellow Democrats in The New York Times.

Strickland said he spent time last year with Buono, whose name he initially mispronounced.

“I only wish the people of New Jersey had the opportunity to go back and to recast their votes,” he said.

Back in New Jersey on Tuesday, a new round of subpoenas was expected in a Democratic-led state legislative probe of the traffic scandal. Meanwhile, a state commission approved the Christie campaign’s request to raise and spend money to comply with subpoenas it has received.

The developments underscore the open-ended nature of the traffic scandal facing Christie as he tries to map out his plans for the year. His office is also conducting an internal review, and he confirmed Tuesday the results of that review would be released to the public.

Christie had planned to appear in public again Thursday to hold his first town hall-style event since reelection, a move that even Strickland conceded to POLITICO was “kind of gutsy.” But the event was postponed to Feb. 18 due to weather, Christie said on his Twitter account Wednesday. Overall, however, his office appears intent on projecting the message that the governor is not slowing down.

“In keeping his word about not letting anything get in the way of doing his job, the governor has kept a robust public schedule the last few weeks,” his office said in an email to reporters on Tuesday, rattling off a list of the governor’s recent activities, many of them focused on Superstorm Sandy recovery, the kickoff of his second term and the Super Bowl, which was held in New Jersey.